1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to power combiners/dividers, and more particularly, to power combiners/dividers that use mutual inductance.
2. Description of the Related Art Current fourth generation partnership project (4G) long term evolution (LTE) systems enable high-rate data communications up to at least 100 Mbps. However, there is increasing demand for high-rate data transmission using wireless communication.
One method for meeting this demand is to use millimeter wave band frequencies. The use of a 28 GHz and 60 GHz band frequency allows for use of a bandwidth of at least 800 MHz. The use of a broad band enables communication at a 1 Gbps or higher data rate even when a simple modulation scheme is used. However, millimeter wave band signals tend to be straight, and thus are difficult to use in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments.
However, beamforming technology is used to address this issue. In other words, 4G LTE systems enable transmission/reception of signals in various directions by coupling together multiple transceivers using the beamforming technology, by implementing a power combiner/divider. The power combiner/divider commonly occupies a large area, disadvantageously increasing the size of a chip for implementing an overall beamforming circuit. When the power combiner/divider itself causes a larger power loss or is designed to negate such power loss, the power combiner/divider enlarges, causing an inconvience in size.
As such, there is a need in the art for a high performance power combiner/divider that does not incur a size increase.